The prior art in this field is profuse. The following U.S. patents constitute prior art related to relatively simple sheet handling apparatus provided to collate or assist in collating sheets emanating from printing and reproduction (copying) machines.
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None of the devices disclosed in these patents actually collate multipage documents. Instead, these devices either offset two or more sets of copies having identical pages to facilitate separation thereof for further high-speed collation or operate on already collated copy sets.
Therefore the need for simple apparatus for collating multipage copies remains unmet and the primary objective of the subject invention is to meet that need.